NEED TO REMOVE AN OFFICIAL?

S.D. council to consider expanding criteria at its meeting Monday

San Diego  In the wake of the sexual harassment scandal involving former Mayor Bob Filner, San Diego City Council members will discuss Monday expanding the city’s list of criteria for removing elected officials from office.

Council members are also scheduled to discuss whether to accelerate the process by choosing the criteria themselves, or to have a committee of citizens hold public hearings and recommend which criteria should be added.

Either way, the new rules would be submitted to voters as an amendment to the city charter.

San Diego’s charter, unlike the charters of most other large California cities, limits the reasons for removing an elected official to death, resignation or a recall election.

So despite Filner pleading guilty last year to a felony and two misdemeanors, it would have required an expensive and time-consuming recall election to remove him from office if he hadn’t agreed to resign.

The county grand jury recommended in March that the city add to its charter several additional criteria for removing elected officials, including a guilty plea or conviction for any felony or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude.

The list, which was based on a review of other city charters, also included being declared insane, moving out of the city or district an official represents, and failure to perform an official’s duties for 90 consecutive days.

City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said Friday that he’d like to see the list also include incapacitation due to health problems. Goldsmith also suggested it would be wise for the council to move quickly, contending that it’s “risky” for the city not to have more power to remove officials. But he added that it’s important for the council to carefully consider the criteria before submitting charter amendments to voters.

“How we remove public officials is very sensitive,” he said. “If we make it too easy, it could become extremely political.”

There’s broad consensus among the council that the charter should include more criteria for removing elected officials.

But council members haven’t decided how the rules will be determined or whether they should be part of a wider revision of the charter, which has been criticized by Goldsmith as a document needing as many as 48 amendments.

Including the new criteria in a set of wider revision would slow the process down. And appointing a charter review committee would also mean delays.

That’s why the grand jury recommended the council opt against creating a committee and simply choose the criteria themselves.

Councilman Mark Kersey criticized that approach during an April 30 hearing on the grand jury’s recommendations.

“If we forgo the charter review commission process, we really doom ourselves to remaining in reactive mode,” he said.